The Effect of Social Media on Self Esteem

Mark Mahalis
Spring 2018
Millersville University
Introduction

“Social media is addictive precisely because it gives us something which the real-world lacks: it

gives us immediacy, direction, a sense of clarity and value as an individual” (Amerland 2012).

Truer words regarding social media may never have been spoken. David Amerland captures not

only the epitome of emptiness intellectually social media can provide without our direct intent,

but also the emptiness emotionally that is having quite the generational effect on those that have

known nothing else but the digital age. As a society, we gravitate towards social media to fill our

immediate interpersonal needs. With that immediate gratification we have created an emotionally

dependency on social media that has only just begun to rear its ugly head. Some in our society

are starting to know no other means of interpersonal gratification other than social media

platforms.

Day in and day out I notice the use of social media increasing amongst friends, family,

and peers only to simultaneously see a decrease in their collective self-esteem (Stephenson-

Davidowitz, 2017). Whether the platform be Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. I even find

myself becoming more sensitive and self-conscious about my existence with my increased use of

social media. This collective drop in self-esteem, particularly as I notice it amongst my peers

aged 18-25, is a dangerous way to move forward as a society. It must be brought to focus before

social media’s dark side consumes an entire generation moving forward as it was born before

Generation Z. I want to complete my research on the effect that social media use has on people

over a lesser studied platform. Much of the previous research I have seen is focused on either

Facebook or what is delegated as SNS or Social Networking Sites.

Social media is being established in good faith. Its intentions, like any invention digitally,

come from a place of good business and networking capability. It gives people an opportunity to
reach anyone around the world in ways no one could have imagined twenty or thirty years ago.

The internet is now so heavily ingrained into people’s lives that it is hard to imagine a life

without it (Martin, 2012) However, this most recent means of communication also allows for

people to more extensively do the one thing humans tend to do inherently: compare ourselves to

one another.

In accordance with self-esteem usually comes the narrative of being compared to another

individual or persons. Social media platforms are a wealth of information about others’ lives and

the allow for easy access into someone’s world. The issue I present is obvious given the

information overload we have as a culture. The only dynamic in self-comparison and social

media that most do not acknowledge is the degree of impression management that goes into

social media networks. (Siibak, 2009) People only allow others to see what they want them to

see. They attempt to control information to affect other opinions of them. While social networks

ask in good faith that individuals represent themselves truthfully, people will do so with varying

degree. This can create a distorted image that someone is comparing themselves to and always

tends to inadvertently affect the self-esteem of numerous amounts of people given their level of

truthfulness on social networks and with themselves.

The information management and constant comparisons by people to one another

exemplify the danger that social networks and media are having on self-esteem. People are not

only becoming accustomed to feeling low about themselves with the single swipe of their finger

on a phone, but even based on the untruthfulness of others depiction of themselves. Most

adolescents and young adults do not have the mindfulness to recognize such harm they are doing

to themselves, especially given them growing up in the social networking age. Self-esteem
matters, and it is a key cog in the success of everyday life. It is clearly being threatened by our

own use and the rate of it.

Previous research has suggested a plethora of different ideas and theories regarding the

effect that social media on self-esteem and personality disorders. Studying the effect that social

media has on college students based on different platforms other than the typically researched

will give me a better understanding of the impact it has on me in a close geographic sense. It will

also contribute to the nationwide and even worldwide phenomena that is not being recognized

enough by the typical person. Bringing more awareness to the phenomena is another step

towards a true understanding of the digital age’s impact on all of us.

Numerous studies have been conducted that depict the positive and negative correlation

that social media sites have on the individual. Studies like that conducted by Perchick, Arad and

Barzilay (2017) depict social media in a more positive light by revealing that it gives people a

sense of independence and the ability to control whom they associate with at the swipe or click

of their finger (Perchick, Arad and Barzilay, 2017, p.23). Some research also suggests that SNS

are a gateway for introverted students to build healthy and strong bonds and relationships

(Ellison, Steinfeld, and Lampe, 2007, p.1154). Research of varying kinds indicates that the act of

comparing oneself to others is related to long term destructive emotions (Wooley, 2013, p.40).

Literature Review

Social Media’s impact does extend beyond the individual and affects business,

establishing its prominence more than ever.. To highlight its power, studies have been conducted

to compare the positive and negative effects on businesses that SNS’s have along with people.

Mats University in India (2016) surveyed dozens of businesses to find what their most frequent
positive and negative responses was when it came to be associated with social media. They used

a quantitative method of gauging which businesses believed social media to be valuable in their

marketing. The study also allowed for qualitative research to gain insight as to why companies

felt so strongly about the positives and negatives of social media use. Businesses tend to have the

ability to gain a better understanding of the likes and dislikes of consumers with quick feedback.

They are also more prone to the access of individual’s freedom to quickly critique and enable

strings of bad public perception based on consumer reviews (Siddiqui and Singh 2016, p.72).

Businesses and it’s positive and negative results and feedback collected off social media are very

similar to that of the individual as depicted by the study. Quick positive and negative feedback

can have a direct effect on someone. When 53% of online adults are said to be using two or more

social networking sites, it shows its dominance in communication amongst people (Siddiqui and

Singh 2016, p.73). Social networking sites allow for ideas to be shared beyond geographical

boundaries, but also allow for the accessibility to blind those being consumed by the information

overload it can present. This information overload is usually littered with an individual’s goal in

creating a certain public perception.

Impression management is one of the most dominant factors of fallacies on social

networking sites (Siibak, 2012). Thus, impression management can be linked to the type of

personality that someone has and their susceptibility to social networks affecting their self-

esteem. Personality is one of the most important factors in self-esteem variance. A study

conducted by Wenhong Chen and Lee Kye-Jyuong (2013) highlights the dominance of distress

created by the simple task of how Facebook can cause psychological distress (Wenhong Chen

and Lee Kye-Jyuong, 2014, p.3). It refers to the control of impression management as directly

linked to internet use and its relation to personality. The study often refers to a corrlation
between the lack of care over information overload and its causation in psychological distress.

Two studies were conducted that revealed that the typical individual did not have the

comprehensive understanding that the information overload on Facebook was having and no

mater the personality characteristics and lack of knowledge regarding the information, most

participants found the more time they spent on Facebook, the more distressed they became (Chen

and Kye-Hyoung, 2013, p. 12).

Social comparison and self-esteem are some of the most prominent factors in personality

development, especially during adolescents and during young adult years. Humans possess a

fundamental drive to compare themselves to others (Vogel, Rose, Roberts, etc., 2014, p.210). A

study conducted in 2014 through the University of Toledo sought to discover what has changed

in social comparisons relating to self-esteem with the up rise in social media. Traditionally,

social comparison offline revolved around in-person interactions with close others, but data

conducted by the study reveals that most social comparisons now are done so in an upward

direction. The study conducted used information in a quantitative measure regarding 145

undergraduate students. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was used as well as measuring their

self-esteem based on social interactions with and without the use of Facebook. The study

revealed that the less profiles viewed on Facebook resulted in a higher ranking on the self-esteem

scale measured at different points. It points in the direction that the less profiles viewed are in

conjunction with less upward comparisons being made. Although the study has its limitations as

far as being operational, more quantitative studies may have been conducted to give further

evidence of different demographics being affected similarly by Facebook use.

Personality is very difficult to measure when conducting studies, but the NEO-PI-R self-

report is widely used as the Five-Factor model of personality. Models of trying to put personality
in numeric form for data are hard to come by, but Amichai-Hamburger and Vinizky (2010) used

this measure in their study to categorize social media effecting different dominant personalities

(Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky, 2010, p.1290)

By using the factors of neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness, and

conscientiousness, as most likely to be depicted on social media with certain criteria, the study

came away with informed results based on personality type. They gathered these results by using

a Likert Scale to gauge which features of Facebook each personality type gravitated towards.

Individuals who have traits associated with agreeableness are more prone to have more

“Facebook friends.” Openness was associated with those most likely to use SNS as a mean of

frequent communication. Extroversion resulted in links to less time on social media while

introversion resulted in links to a much higher understanding and use of social media. High

ratings in consciousness resulted in more friends outside of social media. The study resulted in

narcissistic people posting photos of themselves and worrying about their self-images on social

networks. What this study outlines that certain personality types cause a certain degree of

variance in how social media is used and thus resulted in how it affected a certain individual that

showed strong ties to particularly narcissism (Ivcevic and Ambady, 2012, p.40). Narcissism both

viewed and delivered on social media can be seen as the root cause of the lowered self-esteem

occurring in with increased social media use. Self-esteem can usually be associated with

depression which can also be a narcissistic disease with people focusing on themselves and their

downfalls (Watson and Biderman, 1993, p.50).

Research has suggested that young people today are more narcissistic compared to

previous generations (Paramboukis, Skues, and Wise, 2016, p.38). A study conducted by the

Department of Psychological Sciences at Swinburne University (2016) measured the degree of

narcissism and Instagram use (Paramboukis, Skues, and Wise, 2016, p.43). Narcissism is the one

personality trait that seems to be prevalent in all the research done by self-esteem and the effect

of social media. It’s depiction on SNS is consistent and the use of Instagram as a means of

detecting Narcissism is unique to the field of social media and self-esteem studies. Participants in

the study performed a five-point Likert scale that measured their narcissism inventory. The

questions ranged from Instagram usage, behavior, and emotional reactions, to their attitudes

compared to others. Participants also revealed that a majority (77%) consume data more

frequently than they are to post a picture (51%). It is revealed that rough the qualitative analysis

measured with a few participants that there was a correlation between Instagram behaviors and

attitudes based on the Likert Scale measurements. This correlation revealed a vulnerable

narcissistic quality in those most frequently on Instagram that sought ought comparisons to

others rather than to create their own content. Although the study was revealing, it offered

numerous limitations, including the number of participants varying greatly between genders and

the smaller sample of qualitative research acquired. The link between narcissism and social

media consumption on different platforms is becoming more evident with its increased usage

among those, on the surface, being labels narcissists.

Some researchers disagree with the idea that social media and different online platforms

affects self-esteem monumentally, but as time goes on and research throughout the world

expands, research suggests otherwise. It is important to expand on the impact of different

platforms (Jan, Soomro, Ahmad, 2016, p. 332).

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